The company Harland and Wolff was established during the year 1861, by Gustav Wilhelm Wolff, born within Hamburg in 1834, together with Mr. Edward James Harland born during 1831. During 1858 the general manager at the time, Harland, bought the small shipyard on Queen's Island. He purchased the property from Robert Hickson, who was his employer.
Harland at one time purchased Hickson's shipyard and made his assistant Wolff a partner in the business. Gustav Wolff was Gustav Schwabe of Hamburg's nephew. He has invested mainly in the Bibby Line. The initial 3 ships that were constructed by the brand new shipyard were for that line. By being inventive, Harland made the business a successful undertaking. Among his famous ideas was increasing the overall strength of the ship by using iron for the upper wodden decks. Also, he was able to increase the capacity of the ship by giving the hulls a squarer cross section and a flatter bottom.
Harland and Wolff eventually experienced competitive pressures in regards to shipbuilding. They sought to broaden their portfolio and shift their focus. They decided to focus more on structural design and engineering and less on building ships. The business even diversified into the areas of offshore construction projects, ship repair and competing for more projects which had to do with construction and metal engineering.
Harland and Wolff had other interests, like a series of bridges to be constructed in the Republic of Ireland and in Britain. These bridges comprise the restoration of both Dublin's Ha'penny Bridge and the James Joyce Bridge. During the 1980s, their first venture into the civil engineering sector happened with the construction of the Foyle Bridge.
Today, the last shipbuilding job of Harland and Wolff was the MV Anvil Point. This was among six near identical Point class sealift ships that was built for use by the Ministry of Defense. The ship was launched during 2003, after being constructed under license from Flensburger, Schiffbau-Gesellschaft, shipbuilders from Germany.